


Angel and Animal

by GoddessofBirth



Series: angel!verse [2]
Category: Chronicles of Riddick Series, Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Fusion, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofBirth/pseuds/GoddessofBirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the dark, everything hurt.  Every breath that she shouldn't have to take, every sound she shouldn't have to hear, every thought that skittered faster than leaves across her brain was a jagged cut, as her Grace constantly struggled to escape its bindings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angel and Animal

In the dark, everything hurt. Every breath that she shouldn't have to take, every sound she shouldn't have to hear, every thought that skittered faster than leaves across her brain was a jagged cut, as her Grace constantly struggled to escape its bindings. Sealed to her vessel, sealed to this _place_ – poor description to a meeting of the time-space continuum that technically did not exist – there was no slipping loose from the inside out, from the burning visions that turned her eyes white and destroyed her flesh over and over again, only for it to unwillingly rebuild itself, molecule by molecule.

 

If she hadn't been mad before, she surely would have been by now.

 

She had been here a very long time - although the exact minutes and years were long gone - and lately, she had always been alone. She couldn't decide if it was better or worse than when they used to come, open her cage to precious slips of blue-white light as they came inside. Echoed their demands loud and persistent as they drew the streams of words from her lips; jumbled, nonsensical pearls that they worshiped while pretending to disdain. She could have told them what they meant, if her Grace wasn't a beautifully shattered mirror, dumped in a cardboard box and thrown down a stair that never let the words come out clear. She  _could_ have told them, if the scrabble tiles had lain down in an orderly march down the board, but she  _wouldn't_ have, because they claimed to speak for God, but they did not, and they claimed to love her, but they did not. The angels who loved her had not come when she had pleaded for their help, and she was beyond their reach these days.

 

God's whispers were very quiet now; Michael and Raphael were the only angels she had seen in years, and even they had stopped coming. She wondered if they had forgotten that, Grace fettered, her vessel needed to  _eat_ , or it starved. She had starved to death too many times to count anymore. Maybe here was where she would spend eternity. Maybe as humanity created their own personal heaven, so too, did angels live in their own personal hell. Maybe she would forever be alone.

 

A fine tremor shook the trap, and she slowly tilted her head to the side. Or maybe not.

 

The tremor repeated and then grew, and a rumble started, quiet at first and then louder and louder, until it was roaring so loud she slammed her hands over her ears. The entire trap shook violently. A quiet sound of terror escaped her lips and she skittered as far back into a corner as she could, pulling her knees to her chest in an attempt to make herself smaller than she already was.

 

The sound reached a crescendo, and a small trickle of blood dripped from one ear. A crack appeared in the nothingness that was her cage, ran from end to end, and then, abruptly, both sound and motion stopped. For several seconds there was nothing. She had cautiously begun scooting out from her corner when the entire door was simply ripped away, letting in a bright, white shaft of light that flooded the room, blinking it back into existence as an abandoned cattle shed, somewhere in the southeast corner of Nebraska.

 

A blue-skinned hand curled around the jagged edges of the opening, six fingered and doubled joined, long, pointed nails digging into the walls. A small sigh drifted out of River's mouth at its appearance, which was answered by a low, grumbling growl, and then the owner of the hand stepped into the room, almost completely blocking the sunlight streaming through.

 

River started at his feet and worked her way up, up, up, from her vantage point in the corner. His skin was midnight blue and he was tall enough that by the time she reached his head, crowned by a tangled mess of hair and two long, curved horns, her neck was craned uncomfortably back. He was a massive brute, muscles straining against flesh and naked, except for a loincloth and a wrist guard on each arm; he bared his teeth and razor sharp incisors glinted dangerously, among already scarily pointed teeth.

 

River curled her toes up to hide underneath the tatters of her dress and watched as he snarled and huffed and then braced both hands on either side of the opening. The muscles in his shoulders and arms bunched, and he pawed with one of his feet in the dust, while he muttered something raspy and dark in an ancient language that had long since crumbled to ashes in the memory of mankind. Then, he braced himself, bowed his head, and  _shoved_ .

 

The building shuddered, bits of dust showered on their heads, and then, in an explosion that shook the airwaves, the entire thing shattered into nothingness. All that remained was her, and him, and a two acre crater that national geologists would scratch their heads over for decades. She moved from sitting to standing in the blink of a blink of a nanosecond, and, Grace unleashed, she flexed her wings behind her, feeling them stretch and unfurl, as the red earth swirled up and around her feet and body, her dress pristine and new again, her hair shining and tangle free.

 

The Oni watched her, his chest heaving in and out from exertion, until she had turned in a complete circle, throwing back her head and giggling into the air. It was only after she had tucked her wings back into invisibility behind her, and stilled, that the air began to shimmer around him. His form blurred and then settled into the shape he preferred her to see him as; human, but still tall, still strong. Horns gone entirely and hair close cropped, restrained to the goatee and neatly trimmed mustache. The blue was almost wholly disappeared, retreated to just his irises, and lightening to the ocean instead of the stroke of midnight.

 

She cared little which form he chose. She saw what was underneath them both, and it was beautiful.

 

She smiled. 'You came.'

 

''Course I did. Said I would, didn't I?' He looked insulted that she might have doubted.

 

She nodded. 'You did. Thought they might have killed you. Crick crack, broken eggs in the bottom of the tub.'

 

He made a throaty noise. 'Girl, I'm a thousand year old demi-god. It'd take more'n a bunch a piss ass angels to put me down.'

 

She examined him critically. 'How badly were you hurt?'

 

He shrugged, the air around him rippling again as a shirt and pants replaced the loin cloth. 'Had to go to ground for a bit. One a the reasons it took me so long to start.'

 

She moved toward him, his eyes tracking her progress. 'And Simon?'

 

'As starched and uppity as ever. Maybe more, since an asshole hunter took out his kid's ma.' At her questioning look he waved a hand. 'Long story, sure he'll tell you all about it. Now, you gonna - '

 

She wrinkled her nose at him. 'You smell of death.'

 

'Little girl, I had to break into heaven. Even a badass like me's gotta juice up for that. And then I ran across an angel or two that weren't quite happy about me looking under floorboards and behind the cupboards.'

 

She raised one eyebrow imperiously and he conceded. 'And maybe a few souls.'

 

She stamped her foot. 'Naughty,  _naughty_ boy.'

 

'Hell, girl, I was hungry. Promise they were all real, real bad folk.'

 

'Liar.'

 

He winked. 'Occupational hazard. Now, you gonna keep throwin' a hissy, or you gonna get your ass over here and give me a proper hello?'

 

The words had barely left his mouth before she disappeared and reappeared inches from him. He curved an arm across her back and hauled her to him, smashing his mouth against hers as her arms wound around his neck. She kissed him deep, while his hand ran down her leg to her knee, hitching it up to curve around his waist. As he worked his mouth over hers, he lost just a bit of his control over his form, and his teeth reappeared, the points piercing her lip so that the blood smeared between the two of them, painting red across their mouths.

 

She barely felt it, the sting far closer to pleasure than anything; she was an expert in gradients of pain, and this one didn't even make the scale. It had been so long since she had been touched, and now she was being touched by  _him_ . He finally pulled back, his breath something close to a purring growl, and he ran his thumb over her lips, swiping off the blood and then sucking it off in his mouth.

 

'Hello, my Jayne,' she said.

 

He rolled his eyes. 'How many times I gotta tell you, that ain't my name.'

 

She huffed. 'You are not Asian, despite your species. Jinsei is not appropriate.'

 

'And neither is my accent, but I like it.'

 

'And I like Jayne.  _Jayne_ .'

 

'Brat.' He chucked a hand under her chin. 'Why you give two shakes of a rat's ass if I take out one or two or ten angels anyway? Your family's a bunch of dicks with wings. Their little war just about ripped the universe apart. Gotta tell ya, old ones ain't real happy with any of them.'

 

The whispers were so much louder now that her wings were free, and she fought hard to stay enough in Jayne's reality so that she could communicate with him. 'I have brothers who love me.'

 

'What?  _Castiel_ ? One who drug you back here, so's they could do this? He loves you so much, why'd he do that? Why isn't he bustin' you out, instead of a monster and a demon?'

 

'Not a monster,' she scolded him, even though she knew he wore the term with pride. 'And Castiel is our Father's warrior. He didn't understand.' Her eyes started to fade to white as she whispered. 'He understands now. The cage is built to hide her tracks, and his path was made to walk ahead. He was sent to blaze a standard, to burn the harvest and thresh the wheat. He separated grain from chaff and readied the barn. He is lost to grace now, he fights a new war as his reward. Flesh to flesh and bone to bone, blood is born and blood awakes. He tastes kisses and tears and grows new sorrows. She sees and sees and sees and then the - '

 

'Hey!' Jayne gripped her shoulders and shook her hard enough that her teeth rattled, and her irises snapped back brown. 'Simmer down.'

 

'Down, down, down to the ground,' she sing-songed, then brought his hand to her lips and kissed his palm. 'Castiel has taken a mortal lover and embraced the path of the dirt.' She turned her head to the side and listened to the wind. 'So many voices no longer sing. Raphael is silent. Michael is dancing with his brother again, as he always longed to do.' She gasped. 'My other brother is coming. We should hurry.'

 

Jayne hissed and his skin flashed blue. 'We should stay. I'll skin him for you. Startin' to get hungry again anyhow.'

 

She made a horrified sound. 'No skinning! He has worked almost as hard as you to find this place; to find this girl. It is not his fault she wounded him so badly he had to leave. He warned her; told her to submit. But God is God is God, and when we break we fall. And falling brings the faithful to their knees. God has plans for us all.  _All_ of his children. Dark and light, half and whole.'

 

'D'you ever tell 'em? Michael or Raphael?'

 

'The secret?' She giggled high and loud and just long enough for a look of mild concern to pass the Oni's face. 'Nope. Never, ever, ever tell. That's what makes a secret a secret.'

 

She looked at him very seriously. 'Jayne. How much time?'

 

'Half a century, give or take. Took most of that just to suss out the right mojo to break in.'

 

'Less time than what I thought. More time than what I hoped.'

 

He grimaced and stroked her hair. 'I'm sorry it took so long.'

 

She rested her cheek on his chest. 'I know. But we should go. Not yet time to be found.' She ran her thumbs over his wrist cuffs. 'Don't fear my brother. He loves her.' Her eyes flicked from brown to white and back to brown again, so quickly that Jayne almost missed it. 'One day,' she whispered, 'He will understand her and love you, too.'

 

Jayne snorted. 'I'll just bet. Only reason you love me is 'cause yer cracker jacks. Cute cracker jacks, but cracker jacks all the same.'

 

She perked up. 'Cracker jacks! Do they still have cracker jacks? I want cracker jacks, Jayne.'

 

He rolled his eyes. 'Yeah, they still got 'em. Prizes are for shit now, though. Go to...that little place...you remember where I killed that bitch witch?'

 

She nodded eagerly and pulled his head down to kiss him. He let his eyes close as wings fluttered, and when he opened them again, they were standing between aisle seven and eight of a Qwick-E Mart. River squealed and pulled two boxes of Cracker Jacks off the shelf while Jayne glared over her shoulder at two teenagers that were staring at them, slack jawed. He took the packages from River and pulled her toward the front of the store, making a quick detour to grab a six pack of beer from the cooler.

 

'Come on. Simon's face is probably gonna freeze in permanent 'hellbitch,' we take too much longer gettin' back.' How he ended up partners with a pansy demon was something of a mystery. His life had been a whole lot simpler before he'd up and fallen for a cracked in the brainpan angel.

 

He picked up a pack of gum and opened it, letting the sticks transmute into a small stack of bills that he threw to the cashier on the way out the door. As they rounded the corner of the building, heading into the alley way, he had a thought.

 

'Hey, Riv? Why ain't it time for us to be found yet?'

 

She turned and grinned sunnily, her voice bright. 'Because Riddick will destroy heaven searching for me, and then he will destroy hell. Once he is done, we will be at the proper place to start.'

 

'Apocalypse now,' he muttered, just as they winked out of sight.


End file.
